Coppin State men’s basketball adds 6-11 center Yuat Alok to active roster

The Coppin State men’s basketball program added some height to its roster, announcing Friday evening that 6-foot-11 redshirt junior center Yuat Alok was activated and is immediately eligible for Saturday’s and Sunday’s road games against Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference archrival Morgan State.

Last week, Eagles coach and former Maryland standout Juan Dixon was hoping Alok would be available for the games at the Bears.

“We have a bye week, and we’re working with the NCAA every day through our admissions office to get Yuat enrolled,” he said. “Hopefully, he can get his waiver granted because this young man was in a situation where he went back home during the pandemic to New Zealand, and the borders were closed, and the institution he was with at the time had to move in a different direction. We were very fortunate to have some contacts that we reached out to and reached out to us, and now big Yuat has an opportunity to finish out his college career at Coppin State. He’s been a missing piece since we’ve been here. This young man was on NBA draft boards, he’s 6-11, skilled, athletic, and he’s a good person. So we look forward to having Yuat in the lineup soon.”

Alok joins 6-10 redshirt freshman forward Kenan Sarvan to give Coppin State some much-needed size in the paint. Dixon was anticipating combining Alok with a group that includes redshirt senior point guard Dejuan Clayton, redshirt senior shooting guard Anthony Tarke, senior forward Koby Thomas, freshman shooting guard Nendah Tarke and redshirt sophomore shooting guard Kyle Cardaci.

“Hopefully, he could join our team very soon, and not only do you have a dominant point guard in Dejuan Clayton and dynamic wings in Anthony Tarke and Koby Thomas, but now you have two skilled bigs in Kenan Sarvan and Yuat Alok along with Nendah Tarke and Kyle Cardaci and the others,” Dixon said. “So we’re excited about what we think we’ll be able to get done this season as long as we continue to be high-level young men on and off the floor.”

The Auckland, New Zealand native played two seasons at Chipola College in Marianna, Florida, where he averaged 12.3 points and 7.0 rebounds while shooting 55.1 percent from the floor as a sophomore. He then played in 10 games for TCU during the 2018-19 season where he averaged 3.3 points and 2.5 rebounds.

Alok then transferred to Central Florida, but did not play in any games. He was also a member of New Zealand’s U19 National Team.